Guilds have a lot of moving parts. They’re groups of players who play together — perhaps in the same game, or across multiple games — and share common interests and goals. They’re social networks that help people find friends and meet new people with similar tastes and hobbies. Guilds can also provide a sense of community and camaraderie, as well as social and political advocacy. And then there’s the treasury, the nexus of all the resources that keep your guild running smoothly.
One of the most important things you can do for your guild is to make significant contributions to its treasury. Guilds need to pay for a lot of goods when they participate in guild sieges (for example, to unlock the army deployment slots that let them send troops into enemy territory), and they also need them for GvG and for constructing their battleground buildings. The more you contribute to the treasury, the less it will cost your guild for these purposes.
The treasury can be accessed by navigating to the guild page and selecting the “treasury” option. Players can donate items to the treasury directly through this page, and they can also set the tax modifier for vendors attached to structures. This determines how much of a percentage of an item’s price goes into the guild treasury when it is sold to the vendor. For instance, an item with a 1g value and +100% tax amount will sell for 2g to the player, with 1g of that going into the guild treasury.
There are other ways to give back to your guild, of course. Most of these are related to fulfilling guild requirements – like meeting certain amounts of gold, completing the era quests, contributing to special building constructions or even donating specific items to the treasury. And if there are particular items your guild requires, then they might post these in their guild forum as a call for donations.
Historically, guilds were local trade associations that maintained standards and sometimes constituted local governing bodies. They may have provided apprenticeship opportunities or a forum for developing competence in craft skills. They were often the local unit of a national employer’s organization.
Today, most people associate guilds with professional entertainment or sports, with the Screen Actors Guild Gold buying Cataclysm and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists being the largest and most influential bargaining guild in America. But these aren’t the only kinds of guilds that exist. Even some non-professional groups might have their own version of a guild, as the House Un-American Activities Committee did during the Cold War with its infamous witch hunts against actors, writers and other creatives for their political beliefs. In these cases, the guild might be an association of members – or, in the case of this particular committee, voters – that organizes to exercise collective power against those who they think are not supporting the US government and its policies.